


you or your memory

by bessemerprocess



Category: Haven - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Death, Dark, Everything Gets Worse, Gen, Suicidal Thoughts, Violence, implied money for sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-31
Updated: 2014-08-31
Packaged: 2018-02-15 14:59:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,428
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2233317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bessemerprocess/pseuds/bessemerprocess
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nathan never expected Duke to be haunting him. Of course, Nathan never expect everything to go this wrong, either.</p>
            </blockquote>





	you or your memory

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Miah_Arthur](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miah_Arthur/gifts).



The third biker hits Nathan square in the jaw and that's when he sees him. Duke. Standing just in Nathan's peripheral vision. Standing just out of reach. Nathan turns to grab him, to shake him, to hold him close and ask about Audrey. Duke is gone though. Duke was never there. Just another broken part of Nathan making itself known. 

He waves off the rest of the bikers. His mouth is full of blood, and hallucinating is never a good sign. 

“Come on, man,” one of them says, and waves a twenty in his face.

Nathan leans over and spits the blood out of his mouth, before saying “Naw, man, come back tomorrow.”

“Yeah,” the biker says, looking at the blood on the ground, “yeah, okay.” He walks away and takes his buddies with him, leaving Nathan in an empty parking lot.

\---

The Guard’s been on his tail ever since Jordan woke up. They want him dead, and they have the resources to make that happen. 

If Duke and Audrey weren't in the Barn with it falling apart around them, maybe Nathan wouldn't be trying so hard to hide. But they are and he needs to be here when they come back.

Nathan had emptied his bank account, taken every bit of emergency cash he could, but there is only so much he can get his hands on. It doesn’t take long for him to be running low.

He has to stay in Maine, as close to Haven as he can get in case Audrey comes back, but far enough away so that the Guard doesn’t stumble upon him.

Maine might be a big place, but it's not urban enough to melt away into sprawling metropolis. Instead, Nathan stays on the edges of what cities Maine has. Biker bars and shady motels are his best bet, and even that is risky. He has to keep moving, the Guard has eyes everywhere. 

\---

Letting guys throw punches at him isn't the fastest way to make money and eventually someone's going to break something Nathan needs. And if he has to be honest with himself, it's gotten a little out of hand. He sees Duke for the second time, while a guy is kicking in his ribs and calling him names Nathan hopes Duke can't hear. This wasn't part of the deal, but Nathan had found himself down in the ground anyway and it wasn't looking like this was going to stop any time soon. 

Duke, though, Duke rushes in to the rescue and the guy spooks and runs before Duke even gets to them. That seems to suggest that Duke isn't a figment of Nathan's broken brain, but Nathan been pretty knocked around so he can't be sure. 

Duke is talking but Nathan can't hear him, just sees the movement of his lips and the wave of his hands. Nathan doesn't need the sounds to fill in the words. "Nathan, what the hell are you doing? Nathan, are you okay? Nathan." 

Duke kneels down next him and reaches to grab his shoulders but Dukes hands go straight through Nathan's body. 

"Duke?" Nathan manages to ask, but Duke doesn't answer, just fades away into nothing. That probably means it's time for another MRI. Hallucinating Duke can't be a good sign. 

\---

He ends up at a free clinic. There's a two hour wait, but he's been coughing up blood and even Nathan knows when enough is enough. Too many fists, even ones he can't feel, still do damage. 

The X-rays says there's only one broken rib, just a fracture, but the technician hisses in sympathy at the bruising. If Nathan were anybody else this would hurt for a long time, and as it is, he can't let anyone else hit him for a while. 

It wouldn't be a problem, except Nathan's down to his last ten dollar bill and he has nowhere to sleep tonight. 

\---

The orderly, a nice guy who talked nonstop the entire time he carted Nathan to X-rays and back, finds him a coat from lost and found. It ugly as sin, neon green and orange, but it comes down to his knees and is warm. Nathan left Haven with a jacket on, but it is snowing now as fall gives way to winter and his jacket is meant for crisp fall breezes. 

The cold seeps into his bones, even with both jackets on and his ribs wrapped up tight. He'd used a little of his cash on a truck stop shower this morning. He figured the doctors would treat him better if he was clean. Clean enough if he had cash now a motel clerk probably wouldn't look at him twice. 

Now, standing out in the newly fallen snow, he wishes he'd come in looking more desperate. Maybe there would've been a shelter he could have crashed at for the night. The bronco is stashed back outside Haven, and the junker he's replaced it with isn't going to be warm enough to sleep in tonight. He could sell it, but then he would be stuck and all of this is so he can be there when Audrey needs him. 

He can't go back in and ask now, so Nathan starts walking. He's in Portland this week. Usually he tries to keep out of city centers but he'd needed a free clinic and that required coming into town. The leaf watchers are gone now that the trees are bare, and he can only hope that after three months the guards need to find him has cooled down some. Maybe he looks bad enough now that no one would even recognize Nathan Wournos at all. 

\---

Nathan knows enough to know what goes on in the alley behind Dermot's. He’s been just outside of Portland for more than a month now. It’s close enough to Haven to be in driving distance, far enough away he hasn’t seen Guard at all. Mostly he sleeps in the junker, it doesn’t have heat, but he’s got a sleeping bag. It’s gotten him through December, but January is blowing in on the heels of a blizzard. He's flat broke and the temperature is supposed to drop below zero and he's not sure what else to do. 

He could go back to Haven and let Jordan kill him. Nathan thinks about that a lot these days. He thinks she might even have stopped being so mad. Might even remember that they loved each other, at least a little bit, once upon a time. 

He thinks she might remember that love now, enough that she might let him have a cup of coffee and a shower before she shoots him. It would be nice: no more worrying, no more looking over his shoulder, no more struggling to stay alive. He could go back to Haven and never have to decide if robbery or a beating or a turn on his knees in the Dermot's back alley will be the way he keeps himself in shelter and food. 

With the tourists gone there are fewer people to relieve of their money, and Nathan can't stand to take money from the locals. Worse, he broke his ribs again, this time three, and he can't risk a punctured lung. If he ends up in the hospital he might as well walk back into Haven and hand Jordan a gun. It’s funny how certain he is, if someone is going to shoot him, Nathan plan on making sure its Jordan. At least Jordan will remember him, after.

He needs to be out of the cold tonight and unless he's going to turn around and drive back to Haven he might as well sink a little bit lower. 

\---

Apparently he doesn't look that bad, because he gets recognized outside a gas station as the winter is coming to a close and has to run for it. Greg Jacobsen has been with the Guard probably as long as Vince has been and never been too secret about it. Nathan has no idea what he's doing out here. His sons have taken over his farm, and Greg hasn't been up to much beyond sipping coffee and watching the boats go out since. 

Thankfully, even underfed and sleeping rough, Nathan won't have too much of a problem out running Greg as long as he can find some place to hide after he loses him. 

"This way!" Duke shouts, and Nathan follows without thinking. They dodge into the woods and Greg doesn't follow. 

"I heard you this time," Nathan says once they stop running. He’s panting, out of shape and feeling it. Duke looks like they just took a leisurely stroll. 

"Seriously, man, that's what you want to say to me?" 

Duke may have been gone for six months now, but he gets under Nathan's skin like he's never left. And yet, this is Duke and he's here and Nathan hadn't spoken to a familiar face in months. So he pulls Duke in for a hug. 

Or tries to. His arms pass through Duke. 

"Yeah," says Duke with a shrug, "I'm all ghostly. I fell out of the Barn."

"Audrey?" he asks, trying not to get his hopes up. 

"I haven't seen her," Duke says and looks away. "And anyway, we should keep going before Greg can get reinforcements out here."

Duke heads deeper into the woods and Nathan follows. 

\--- 

Duke stays for a while this time, long enough for Nathan to steal a car. It’s a 1982 blue Datsun, worse even than the junker Nathan left behind at the gas station when he ran and stealing it is probably doing its owner a favor. 

“So you’re haunting me now?” Nathan asks, glossing over the fact that if Duke is a ghost, than Duke is probably dead. And if Duke is dead… well, Nathan can’t think about that.

“Only sometimes,” Duke says, and Nathan is relieved. Nathan has done plenty of terrible things in the last six months. Things he doesn’t want to remember, let alone, have Duke know. He’s not sure where along the line Duke’s friendship became important to him, but it had.

Nathan stops himself from asking what Duke had seen, what Duke knows. Maybe if he doesn’t know, it will all be okay. 

“I’ve been haunting this girl, too. Her name is Jennifer and I think she can hear inside the barn. We’re going to meet her in Haven,” Duke explains.

“Audrey?” Nathan asks.

Duke lays a ghostly hand on Nathan’s leg, careful with the illusion of touch. It’s not like it feels all that different to Nathan anyway, as he holds his breath and hopes for the best. 

“Yeah, Jennifer can hear her. She can’t talk back, but she can hear Audrey.”

Nathan has to pull the car to the side of the road and take a moment to breathe, arms wrapped around the steering wheel. 

“She’s alive?”

“I don’t know. She might be like me, but that’s not nothing right? We could still get her back,” Duke says.

“Let’s go, then,” Nathan says and put the car into gear.

\---

Duke fades in and out on the drive up to Haven. It doesn’t take long, a couple hours, and they’re in a parking lot just beyond the town line. 

There’s a woman there with dark hair and nervous eyes, but she smiles when she sees Duke next to Nathan. 

“You must be Jennifer,” he says, and shakes her hand. She looks uncertain, but she shakes his hand before meeting Duke’s eyes again. “Duke says you can hear Audrey.”

‘“I could, but then there was a terrible noise. Like a house imploding. I haven’t heard anything since then,” she replies looking morose. Like she’s killed all Nathan’s dreams. Maybe she has, he thinks.

They’ve barely let go when the Guard rolls up, and men with guns spill out of trucks and SUVs. 

Jordan is there, too. Each one of those men deferring to her as she strides towards them.

“Hands in the air,” Jordan calls. Jennifer is the only one who does so. Duke smirks, and shoves his hands in his pockets, and Nathan just turns to look at her.

“We can get Audrey back,” Duke says to her, but Jordan keeps walking, ignoring him entirely. Nathan’s not sure he believes Duke anymore, anyway. Not if Jennifer can’t hear the Barn anymore. Not if the destruction he started might have finished with Audrey inside it.

“What are you doing in Haven, Nathan? You know that this is signing your own death certificate.” Jordan looks beaten and tired and almost as bad as Nathan imagines he would if he looked in a mirror. It’s a terrible thing to see. 

“I had to take the chance,” he says. Not even a chance now. 

“Jennifer can hear the barn, she thinks we can save Audrey and end the Troubles,” Duke explains.

“A chance? The only thing here for you is death, Nathan,” Jordan says, pushing her gun into his chest. 

“Nathan,” Duke says slowly, “I don’t think Jordan can see me.”

“Of course she can,” Nathan says, but Jennifer is shaking her head, and Duke is waving his hand in front of Jordan’s face with no response.

“If you can’t see Duke, why haven’t you shot me yet?” Nathan asks.

“Duke? You see Duke?” Jordan asks, looking intently at Nathan’s face. “What happened to you out there, Nathan?”

“Nothing,” he says. 

Vince pulls in, and Nathan finally figures out why Jordan had been stalling. Vince still holds the Guard’s collar after all, and no matter how much Jordan might want to shoot him, Nathan should’ve never imagined she’d kill him without Vince’s permission. 

“Nathan,” Vince says, and they shake hands, like they aren’t surrounded by twenty armed men who all want Nathan dead.

“Vince,” he replies. 

“I’ll take care of this, son,” Vince says, and then turns to Jennifer. He asks her name, and offers his arm, before walking her out past the armed perimeter. He nods at Nathan once Jennifer is in his car, and then nods to Jordan before pulling away. 

Jordan takes a deep, steadying breath, and says “Goodbye, Nathan,” just as Duke starts screaming. Jordan can’t hear him, can’t see his panic, but Nathan can, and for the last few seconds of his life, he’ll feel guilty that Duke has to watch this, that Jordan has to do this. 

“I’m sorry,” he says to both of them, and then the gun fires, and his heart ceases to beat, and Jordan fades away, and Duke fades away and Nathan isn’t haunted anymore.


End file.
